Once Were Warriers Breaks Through To Top Ten

For immediate release: 19 March 2010 (NZ)

Once Were Warriors Breaks Through To The Top 10 In Global Reads Poll

www.globalreads.co.uk

Alan Duff’s iconic New Zealand novel, Once Were Warriors, is currently in the top 10 of the international Global Reads poll.

Global Reads was launched by the UK’s National Book Tokens as part of its campaign to raise £10,000 for Book Aid International. The money raised will be used to distribute 5,000 books to library users across 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

People from across the world are asked to vote for their favourite Global Read via www.globalreads.co.uk - a book with a global theme that has changed their perception of another country or introduced them to a different culture. Supporters are also following the campaign on Facebook and Twitter.

Book lovers visiting www.globalreads.co.uk will be encouraged to share the chance to win new Gift Cards with friends and in doing so, help National Book Tokens raise £10,000.

The results of the favourite Global Read will be announced on 12 May 2010.

To support the campaign a range of high profile celebrities have also contributed their favourite Global Read. Celebrities include British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, comedian and travel-writer Michael Palin and author and former model, Sophie Dahl.

“Improving education across Africa is vitally important in eradicating poverty and the Government is committed to helping poor countries achieve the education Millennium Development Goal. I welcome the work that you are doing to send as many books to sub-Saharan Africa as possible and I wish you every success with your campaign.” Gordon Brown, Prime Minister

Michael Palin has chosen If This is a Man by Primo Levi as his Global Read. He comments, “No other book I know offers a greater insight into the complex and universal question of man's inhumanity to man.”

The current top 10 Global Reads are:
1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
3. Wild Swans by Jung Chang
4. The Jive Talker: Or, How to Get a British Passport by Samson Kamabalu
5. Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh by Helena Norberg-Hodge
6. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
7. Small Island by Andrea Levy
8. Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff
9. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
10. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

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